In a free market there would not be legislation, such as the legislation being challenged by the FMF and NEASA, which prevents job seekers from entering into agreements with employers on mutually agreeable terms. The simple free market way to get SA’s 8.4 million unemployed people working is to allow…

The loss of jobs and hardships imposed on small businesses by the extension of Bargaining Council Agreements to micro and small businesses is inhumane. It is these businesses that have the potential to provide jobs to the majority of the 8.4 million currently unemployed people.
Instead of having their jobs protected…

The Free Market Foundation has launched a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to expose government funding of anti-nicotine research and advocacy, and also, to determine whether the Minister and the department of health fund non-academic activities, such as the Council Against Smoking. Further requests will…

HAVE you hugged a socialist lately? ’Tis the season for giving, so this, my last column for this year, gives generously to intellectually needy socialists. Socialists, that is anti-market fundamentalists and interventionists of all ilks, had a ghastly year, starting with rising "inequality" and culminating with a demographically unrepresentative South…

The Free Market Foundation has launched a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to expose government funding of anti-nicotine research and advocacy, and also, to determine whether the Minister and the department of health fund non-academic activities, such as the Council Against Smoking. Further requests will…

It is unfortunate that South African business owners and managers wake up every day wondering what new regulations will descend on them. Business owners and managers live in perpetual uncertainty, which hampers their forward planning. In addition, more and more of their time is taken up in complying with regulations,…

The intensity of blackouts increased this week. Robbers apparently are finding “load-shedding” schedules most useful in planning their activities. This happened in 2008 so it is rather unpleasant to have to be reminded of this phenomenon of blackouts.
When government and Eskom officials previously commented on the country’s electricity calamity they…

Labour unions have played an important economic, political and social role in the transition from apartheid to democracy. When black South Africans were barred from political participation during the apartheid years and the apartheid government explicitly and forcefully denied black South Africans a voice, labour unions effectively assumed a decidedly…

In The Mystery of Capital, Hernando de Soto argues that a lack of formal property rights results in a drag on economic development. He says that informal rights (or no rights at all) represent “dead capital.” People who possess dead capital cannot use it to secure the financing necessary to…

In this tough economic climate many South Africans are feeling the pinch as their household debt rises and disposable incomes fall. An over-taxed middle class are naturally feeling cheated as they are being forced to fork out for Nkandla, e-tolls, SAA and other government-run black holes. This picture is particularly…

“The DTI’s draft policy for Intellectual Property (IP) is unclear,” according to David Cochrane, patent attorney and partner at Spoor Fisher. Speaking at a media briefing at the Free Market Foundation (FMF) on Wednesday November 26, Cochrane said that the main problem was that the policy had not been drafted…

Government works hard. Most of what it does seems to be to keep up the unceasing struggle to circumvent the bad things caused by other things it already does. This is illustrated yet again by the unfolding decision by government to go the nuclear route.
Department of Energy officials categorically stated…

“The DTI’s draft policy for Intellectual Property (IP) is unclear,” according to David Cochrane, patent attorney and partner at Spoor Fisher. Speaking at a media briefing at the Free market Foundation (FMF) on Wednesday November 26, Cochrane said that the main problem was that the policy had not been drafted…

Looking at the reasons for the split of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) from Cosatu, it is important to distinguish between the apparent cause and the real cause of the division.
For some years now, Numsa members have refused to wear National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) T-shirts,…

During South Africa’s platinum miners’ strike that ended in June this year, I was puzzled by union members who suggested they’d rather be unemployed than earn what they described as a “low wage”. I was really startled by their remarks. It made no sense to me, not only because I…

South Africans in general and taxpayers in particular have become accustomed/hardened/seasoned to the perennial, colossal financial blunders otherwise known as South African Airways, our proud national airline, and Eskom, the state electricity generator.
We have fallen victim to the well-known psychological syndrome of apathy. We succumb to an overwhelming sense of…

“My last column “Regime Uncertainty Weighs on Growth” (October 2014) stressed that market participants do not know what the Big Players (Read: governments and central banks) will do next. This regime uncertainty is creating an economic undertow. No wonder there have been so many recovery false dawns.
In the past month,…

During South Africa’s platinum miners’ strike that ended in June this year, I was puzzled by union members who suggested they’d rather be unemployed than earn what they described as a “low wage”. I was really startled by their remarks. It made no sense to me, not only because I…

THE Economist wrote: "In the end it was a massacre." Other media were equally effusive about the US’s midterm elections, which saw the Republican Party gain majorities in both houses of Congress. Analysts either rejoice over or lament the supposed end of the road for Democrats. A Google search on…

First published by the FMF on 06 March 2010
Having lived in Apartheid South Africa, I feel I have the benefit of hindsight to comment on walls of tyranny, be they in South Africa, Korea, Germany or wherever throughout Africa. "The history of the Wall symbolises the truth that a free…